As Annika Haywood shifted lines and jerry jugs around Apres Ski’s busy cockpit, her cat, Cappuccino, lifted his fluffy head and gave us a stern look.
The Smith-Haywood family was racing to finish projects and stow everything before their late-November departure with the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, the World Cruising Club’s annual 2,700-mile transatlantic rally from the Canary Islands to St. Lucia. The bustling activity on the Las Palmas docks had Cappuccino slightly put out, and you can’t blame him. There’d been a lot of hustle for the Smith-Haywood family and a lot of miles under the keel of their 1991 Tayana 47 in the previous five months; the 20-plus day Atlantic crossing was next.
When you see a New Zealand-flagged sailboat on a Spanish island west of Africa, you can’t help but think, how did they get here? If you sailed west from New Zealand, sailed to Egypt, transited the Suez Canal, crossed the Mediterranean, passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and reached southwest to the Canary Islands, you would be halfway around the world.
So how did this Kiwi family find themselves half a world away from Pine Harbour?
Half a world away
For the Smith-Haywood clan, it’s a long story with
a lot of ports of call. Lloyd Smith was born in Canada; New Zealand native Annika went to St. John’s, in Newfoundland, Canada, to work on her PhD in biology (genetics), and that’s where the two met. “We have been working in Saudi Arabia since 2009 and just ‘retired’ in June,” said Lloyd, who has permanent residency in New Zealand.
Lloyd was the director of the Coastal and Marine Resources Laboratory, a part of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or KAUST, programme. Annika worked on postdoctoral research on the genetics of sponges and worked with the KAUST research office.
They found their boat in Spain, from a Yachting World listing, and had it delivered from Palma, Mallorca, to Corfu, Greece. From Corfu, Lloyd, Annika and their two children Brieanna and Tallon (seven- and four-years-old at the time) and friends moved the boat to Cyprus, and then on to Saudi Arabia. They adopted Cappuccino, a nine-year-old blue-point Himalayan, in Saudi Arabia.
Twelve years later, they signed up for the ARC, departed Jeddah, sailed up the Red Sea and transited the Suez Canal. Their five-month, eight-country, 4,300-mile journey to the Canary Islands reads like a dreamy travelogue: Egypt, Cyprus, Rhodes, Gallipoli, Rome, Amalfi Coast, Barcelona, the Strait of Gibraltar, Tangier, Casablanca.
“The most difficult sailing we faced was heading north up the Red Sea,” Annika said. “We had headwinds and very short, steep chop from the waves, especially when we were getting close to the Gulf of Suez. Our poor cat was struggling with the heat and the waves, as were we.”
In Cyprus they acquired an EU pet passport for their fluffiest family member, who remains mostly indifferent to his new EU status.
“Our biggest technical and logistical challenge was our engine failure between Cyprus and Rhodes,” she said. The extended delay in Rhodes forced them to compress some of their Mediterranean plans and put them in a tight spot against the 90-day Schengen area limit.
In contrast, one of the thrills of their Mediterranean leg was watching New Zealand win the America’s Cup, in Barcelona from their own boat.
“The biggest highlight was actually crossing the Atlantic,” Annika said of the transatlantic sail with the ARC fleet.
“This was a big goal for us. We had some days with an average speed of over eight knots and hit peak speeds of more than 12 knots, which was amazing for us. Flying our green and black spinnaker for the first time during the crossing was
a massive highlight, too.”
Jumping with the fleet
Paeroa native Jared Hodge was another Kiwi who jumped the pond with the 2024 ARC fleet.
“I am not a long-time sailor; some would say I’m not much of a sailor at all. But I am a long-time adventurer. I have a high passion for exploring places and cultures,” Hodge said.
That’s where the idea of the Fountaine Pajot Samana 59 came from, he said.
“I was around boating and engines a lot as a young person in New Zealand. I had very little sailing experience.”
The Hodges bought Deseo brand new in La Rochelle, France. They sailed the multihull as far east as Turkey, visited Africa, then travelled west through the Straits of Gibraltar onwards to the Canaries. From there they joined the ARC for the Atlantic crossing. They plan to spend a year in the Caribbean and possibly sail the boat back over to Europe with the ARC 2026.
New Zealander Ross Hunter is a boat builder by trade and works with shore crews for race boats like the TransPac 52. He’s been working in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, for 15 years. He met Dave Pignolet, the owner of American-flagged Catana 65 Misfit, through the captain of the racing boat Interlodge. Dave invited him to do the Atlantic crossing on the big cat.
“The crossing was lots of work – but much more fun,” Ross said. “We had a series of problems – a broken kite, broken reefing points, a problem with the main clew. But we had a great time. The rally was really amazing – fishing, sundowners with drinks in hand, great food, and great company!”
The multihull ate up 3,175 Atlantic nautical miles in 14 days. Now Ross is back in New Zealand working on airships and carbon fibre components.
“I’ve been asked to do another leg or two on Misfit, during the World ARC (circumnavigation). I’m hoping I can get time off to do just that.”
Post-Covid travel bug
When New Zealand opened its borders in 2021, Nicole Fougere, her husband Richard Chetwynd and their two teenagers, Gisele and Jacques, booked one-way flights to Europe, hoping to buy a catamaran, sail the Mediterranean, and possibly cross the Atlantic.
“We had four weeks’ sailing experience under our belts, onboard a monohull through Yachtshare in Westhaven Marina,” Nicole said. “By no means were we boaties!
“But we were definitely confident water people, into surfing, diving, swimming, and paddling. The weeks we spent sailing out to Great Barrier, Kawau and Waiheke Islands sealed the deal for us.”
They spent four weeks searching for a boat in Sardinia, during which Rich and Nicole took the 45-hour online portion of the Royal Yachting Association RYA Day Skipper course. After completing the onboard section of the course in Split, Croatia, they found a Fountaine Pajot Helia 44 in Athens,
“Our first sail on Uno, and really the first proper catamaran sailing we’d done, was our four-day passage from Athens to Bodrum, Turkey. We sailed during the day and anchored each night, still trying to figure out the tricky Meltemi winds and the boat,” she said.
They spent three months in Turkey, including six weeks working on boat projects in Marmaris Bay.
“This is where we met a whole load of live-aboard families, who were all waiting out the mild winter like us, in non-Schengen territory. In the sailing community, you become fast friends, and we are still in contact with these friends today.”
They left Turkey in June and spent a month in the Greek islands, then sailed across the Strait of Messina in Sicily. They cruised the Amalfi Coast and then continued on to Capri, Procida, and Ponza.
“We spent a week in Ponza, melting in an epic heatwave, climbing through grottos, cliff jumping, and swimming as much as possible.”
They crossed to Sardinia, then the Balearic Islands of Minorca and Mallorca, and on to the mainland of Spain.
“We stopped in Vilanova i la Geltru to watch New Zealand race in the America’s Cup preliminary regatta, then sailed to Gibraltar to provision and wait for a weather window to cross to the Canary Islands.”
“The biggest challenge for us at that time was making our way through the Strait of Gibraltar, navigating one of the world’s busiest shipping channels – followed by avoiding pods of Iberian Orcas, which had been a problem in the area.
“We had really big following seas off Morocco and surfing the waves was quite scary at times. Especially at night when it felt like we were riding a roller coaster in the dark, and we would lose our stomachs. Seeing land and then anchoring in Graciosa Bay (in the Canary Islands) was a huge highlight; we felt like we had really achieved a huge goal.”
They crossed the Atlantic in 22 days, arriving in St Lucia mid-December 2023.
“We sailed conservatively and switched out our asymmetric gennaker (which we could only fly in up to 12 knots AWS) to our white sails each evening, before the night watch began.
“We definitely did not go hungry. We caught 10 huge mahi-mahi, a two-metre blue marlin, and two yellowfin tuna.
“We saw pilot whales and pods of dolphins. The night sky in the middle of the Atlantic was spectacular – shooting stars, meteorite showers, and the most amazing full moon that made it seem like daylight.
“At 7am, on Day 22, we sailed over the ARC finish line and into Rodney Bay Marina in St Lucia, to the cheers of all of our friends who had already arrived. The local marina staff handed us a fruit basket and a rum punch to celebrate, while we hugged our friends. To have made it across an ocean, almost entirely under the power of Mother Nature was the most surreal and exhilarating feeling.”
The crew of Uno explored the islands for several months, then sold her in the British Virgin Islands in April 2024.
“Boat life is amazing – and it is a hard thing to shake once you have experienced it. We are forever changed. For now, we are back in New Zealand and our kids are back in school, after being boat-schooled for the last 2.5 years. Our family bond has strengthened so much after living together, day in and day out. We are all keen to get back on a boat, but this time it would be a little bigger and a little faster.
“We’re settling back in, but I don’t think we’ll manage to stay away from another boat for very long.”
The long way home
The Smith-Haywood crew, for now, are exploring the French islands of the Caribbean with plans to sail to the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, then on to the San Blas Islands and Panama. The Atlantic crossing has given them more confidence for the upcoming Pacific crossing.
“In early to mid-April we’ll transit the Panama Canal and head to the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, French Polynesia, then the Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga and down to New Zealand.”
There’s still a few miles to go before the family gets back to Pine Harbour.
